Christina Lundberg: What Scares Me City

Breathing scares me, when I can’t, and my head goes blank and I fall fast in this space that becomes so huge and deep that I can’t catch myself anywhere in it and I have no arms and go blind and need to tell someone I am not feeling known or recognizable and I don’t know what is going to happen now, something horrible look both ways, just in case someone is watching and lock all your doors twice no three times and stay away from the television because of the “you can’t get away” music and the image overdose attacks that the eyes choke down and the next thing you know you have witnessed murders and all sorts of crimes but your doors are locked wait I better check again and I am afraid of leaving the stove on and I will come home to a burned down apartment and my poor cat oh, I am afraid that I’ll get into a car accident or you will and of stray men or men in groups that are walking down the street and teenagers who have nothing to loose oh and I am hearing that crime is increasing in our neighborhood and I am afraid to walk outside by myself after dark and inside imagining break-ins and I am afraid of getting in my car sometimes and getting out of it and I am afraid of not being talkative enough and not ever knowing what to do when my co-workers break out into musicals, and I am afraid of getting injured, and getting cancer and ulcers and food poisoning
and I am afraid of forgetting what day it is and everything that happened yesterday
and I am afraid of people who don’t smile and when someone stands too close to me
and asks me if there is any food in their teeth and I am afraid for all the homeless people out there holding up signs and how I might become one of them and I am afraid of the sound of footsteps coming towards me and I am afraid that people see a ghost when they look at me and I am afraid that I will not even know if I go crazy and I may just fall right out of this body at any moment.